The Collection of Medals Formed by Bill and Angela Strong

A Second World War campaign group of four awarded to Sergeant Abraham Opoczynski, Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps (alias Sergeant Adam Orr, Royal West Kent Regiment), who was captured in a Small Scale Raiding Force operation on the French coast in September 1942 and met an uncertain fate in Germany in April 1945 - had he survived he would have been awarded the M.M.

1939-45 Star; France and Germany Star; Defence and War Medals 1939-45, M.I.D. oak leaf, together with the recipient’s original M.I.D. certificate in the name of his wartime alias ‘Sergeant (Actg.) A. A. Orr, The Queen’s Own Royal West Kent Regiment’, and dated 25 September 1947, extremely fine (4) £400-500

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, The Bill and Angela Strong Medal Collection.

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Abraham A. Opoczynski (alias Adam Orr), who was born to Russian parents in Lodz, Poland in August 1915, enlisted in the Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps in March 1940. In light of his fluency in foreign languages, however, he was subsequently enrolled as a member of the Small Scale Raiding Force (S.S.R.F.), under Major G. H. “Gus” March-Phillipps, D.S.O., O.B.E., in which capacity he adopted the alias of ‘6387010 Private Adam Orr, Royal West Kent Regiment’.

Whether he participated in earlier operations of the S.S.R.F. remains unknown, but he certainly formed part of the team allocated to “Operation Aquatint” on the night of 12-13 September 1942, March-Phillipps taking with him three Captains, a Lieutenant, a C.S.M. and a Sergeant, and ‘three Privates representing the diversity of the Allies now fighting the Nazis - Jan Hellings, a Dutchman, Abraham Opocynski, a Pole known as Adam Orr, and Richard Lehniger, known as Leonard, a Jewish Sudetan German.’ Their objective was to attack a small group of houses near the sea at Ste-Honorine and bring back prisoners.

Taken to within some 250 yards of their intended landing place by M.T.B., the party completed its journey to the shore in a collapsible Goatley landing craft. Thereafter, as described by Helen Fry in The King’s Most Loyal Enemy Aliens, everything quickly went wrong:

‘At 01.05 hours a German guard dog began to bark. The men were discovered and several rounds of gunfire and grenades were fired between the S.S.R.F. and the German patrol. Private Lehniger and Sergeant Williams managed to get back to the shore and swim to the Goatley which was being showered by bullets from the German patrol. The Goatley began to fill up with water and subsequently sank. It is thought that both men were severely injured and drowned after the Goatley sank, although some mystery still surrounds the cause of their deaths. What is known is that during that fateful raid, Private Lehniger died with Major G. H. March-Phillipps and Sergeant Allen Williams on 13 September 1942.’

Somewhere in the confusion of battle, Opoczynski, Captain John Burton and the Dutchman, Jan Helling, managed to escape and swim further down the coast. Coming ashore, they were provided with clothing and food by the local French, but at length they were caught by German parachutists carrying out manoeuvres and told that they would be shot. Burton, who subsequently ended up in a P.O.W. camp, was separated from his comrades at Frankfurt, where ‘they were taken to Gestapo H.Q. for further questioning’. Thereafter, until the end of the War, the trail goes cold.

As verified by official records, Opoczynski would have been awarded the M.M. had he survived (T.N.A. WO 373/104 refers), but in the event he was posthumously mentioned in despatches. His next of kin was given as a nephew, Mr. L. Spiro of Forest Gate, Essex, to whom the authorities had written in January 1946:

‘It is known he was a Prisoner of War in Stalag VIIIB until the liberation of Europe. Being of Polish nationality, he may, on liberation, have proceeded to Poland without reporting to the Allied authorities.

Sergeant Opoczynski has been recommended for an award for gallant and distinguished services in the field but this recommendation cannot be considered until his present location is known to us ... ’

His nephew responded:

‘I have been in communication with several of his chums that have been with him in the camp, and they all seem to know only that he was in camp about two days before the liberation but none of them seem to know anything of him after that date.’

Department M.S. 3 records state ‘The death of Sergeant A. A. Orr has been recorded as presumed killed in action on, or shortly after 12 April 1945.’

He is buried in Durnbach War Cemetery, Germany.